CariCRIS is a rating agency founded in 2004 in Trinidad & Tobago to serve the Caribbean region. Its major shareholders include the MIF/IDB, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), CRISL, the Indian credit rating agency majority-owned by Standard and Poor’s, ,and some central banks in the region. The MIF provided grant and investment financing to help launch the company. When I was entrusted to look after the project in early 2013, CariCRIS had been operating at a loss for its entire history because it did not have enough clients, and was running out of capital.

Three years ago, I and my MIF colleagues who focus on Jamaica made a deliberate decision to target access to finance for Jamaican SMEs--a critical area of need in the country, and one in which we could make a difference. Today, the MIF portfolio in Jamaica includes a group of mutually reinforcing projects that offer support to small and medium firms through a range of models. I recently attended the 2015 Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) Conference in Kingston, which got me reflecting on the progress we’ve made with this targeted approach.

During the closing ceremony for the 2014 Foromic in Guayaquil, Ecuador, MIF General Manager Nancy Lee reviewed highlights from the conference and shared her top ten takeaways from the panels and other events. Topics discussed included advances in digital financial services, crowdfunding platforms, and savings products.

By Tetsuro Narita, Topic Lead of the Innovative Models for Small Business Finance Team of the Access to Finance Unit at the Multilateral Investment Fund, member of the Inter-American Development Bank Group.

At a recent workshop I attended in Nicaragua, we were shown a video of a “pulpero,” or small shop owner, testifying to the benefits of a new cell phone-based financial service for entrepreneurs. When asked to list his top three factors for success in business, he responded: (1) Give thanks to God; (2) Have dreams; and (3) Know exactly what you are doing. His first item seems to be good advice for most situations, and the second two factors are relevant not only to a humble pulpero, but to any business of any size, especially one seeking to tap into a new market segment.